


Dead Air

by TempoPrestissimo



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies), The Melankholia Project
Genre: Gen, crazy people and crazy ideas, fighting giant monsters is all the same right?, the crossover no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 12:43:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14378904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempoPrestissimo/pseuds/TempoPrestissimo
Summary: After the events of the Precursor attack, the PPDC is in chaos trying to reorganize and distribute what's left of their resources. The Moyulan Shatterdome gets a new marshall with some interesting ideas for how to handle a one Newton Geizler.Also: Amara makes friends, Jake and Nate bicker, and more grim realities of the war are revealed.





	Dead Air

**Author's Note:**

> No one asked me to mash up Pacific Rim: Uprising and the Melankholia books but here we are.

“I’ve learned that just because something is crazy doesn’t mean it’s the wrong answer.” Marshall Ascencio said, endearing himself to Amara immediately. He had a calm voice, quiet and gentle, like his appearance. He was man of average height with a lean build and uncharacteristically long hair. It was tied in a ponytail that hung over his shoulder. “What’s the harm in trying the crazy thing if it’s an option? Just because it sounds ridiculous doesn’t make it impossible.”

“Okay, but what’s the crazy thing?” Jake asked plainly. 

“Well…” The Marshall sighed. “You do have a man here who is being mind-controlled by precursors, do you not?”

“Geizler, the scientist,” Nate said. “He’s in containment.”

“And he won’t talk.” The marshall continued.

Nate flashed Jake a look, one that the latter wasn’t sure he understood. “Well, he  _ can _ talk,” Jake said. “But he just… makes threats, usually.”

“So, we need a way to get what is in his head, out. And, ideally, see if he can’t be put back in control of his own mind, but let’s start with one problem at a time.” Ascencio said with a small smile.

“So the crazy thing you’re suggesting is…?” Jake was no stranger to having to press for answers, but at the same time, it was kind of a relief that it was the marshall who was suggesting something crazy and him or Amara for once.

“Have someone drift with him,” Ascencio said simply.

“That’s nuts. No offence, sir, but it’s hard enough to get two people to willingly drift together let alone get someone unwilling to do it.” Jake pointed out. Amara made a disgruntled noise, but had nothing to add.

“Yes, about that.” The marshall said. “That’s actually why I’ve called you three here. Pentecost, Lambert, you two have a lot of experience around both other pilots and varying amounts of bad ideas-” This time when Nate shot him a look Jake knew  _ exactly _ what it meant and was appropriately offended, “- and you, Namani, well, you are part of this three-person team, aren’t you?”

It was the first time that idea had been mentioned, and she wasn’t sure whether she should be surprised or delighted. That Gypsy Avenger was known for having three pilots was news to everyone in the room except for the marshall. He continued speaking as though he didn’t notice her expression.

“As it stands, I have a few of the people coming from my old post who might be able to help us with this problem. I’m hoping I can rely on you three to help them get up to speed. With the losses suffered, I’m going to have my hands full for a little while”

“So you want us to help the tourists,” Jake said plainly. He hastily added a ‘sir’ on to the end, but it didn’t seem like he was going to get yelled at for his casual comment.

Ascencio laughed. “They’re  _ not _ tourists, Pentecost. They are permanent transfers.” He said. “But it’s also worth considering that with the damages done here, you’re short almost all of your senior pilots and much of your support staff. Now, I’m not exactly asking you to do paperwork.” He told them. “But you probably  _ will _ be responsible for more than your share, at least for a little while.”

“We can do it.” Amara said. Jake had his hand on her shoulder and tightened it, and it was her turn to look at him strangely. ( _ You never sign up for extra work _ , he’d tell her later, his expression serious but the mischief in his eyes unmistakable,  _ you never know what they’ll put you down for. _ )

“I think you’ll like them.” The marshall favoured her with a smile. “I mean, at least most of them.”

They were waiting when the helicopter touched down. The sight of the twin-rotor machines had been more and more common as people were flown in and out, going to and from various outposts. A lot of them had been hit even harder than they were, so there was a lot of reshuffling going on.

The blonde woman who jumped out of the copter and greeted them with a grin was immediately recognizable.

“He didn’t say he was calling in  _ family _ .” Jake noted sarcastically, not bothering to be quiet over the sounds of the landing area.

“Don’t do anything stupid and she won’t have to rat you out.” Was all Nate had to say in response.

“Hey!” As others piled from the copter, she ran up to them without hesitation. There was no mistaking it. The Marshall might have been calmer and more reserved, but they had the same features. 

“Evangeline?” Nate asked, sticking out his hand. She shook it with the same enthusiasm she seemed to have for everything.

“Did he tell you to say that?” She scoffed. “Call me Zig.  _ Marcellus _ out here pretending like anyone actually calls me by my name.” She rolled her eyes. “They bring in my baby yet?”

“Your Jaeger?” Amara asked, brightening immediately. “You’re bringing your Jaeger?”

“Two of them. We got two sets of pilots here.” She pointed behind her at a pair of people who were just clearing the helicopter. There was a slight woman with dark hair and a much larger man with thick dreadlocks.

“Lola and Braddock, pilots of Ava Destruction. Aaand, that one’s not a pilot, he’s a scientist.” She added, jutting her finger at a man carrying a duffel bag and who had his arms full of binders. Had she not told them, it would have been equally obvious anyways.

“Hey, Amara, you wanna take him to the lab?” Nate suggested.

“I want to see the Jaegers!”

“They ain’t goin' anywhere when they get here.” Zig pointed out amicably.

“You could just hurry.” Jake pointed out. His tone didn’t have any sympathy and she hit him on his side as she jogged to meet up with the scientist in question.

Zig watched them leave with narrowed eyes, and just as Jake was about to ask her what she was so suspicious about she seemed to snap back to herself.

“Wait, we’re one short, hold on-”

She ran back into the copter just as the other two joined them.

“Hey, a welcome party,” Braddock said, smiling. He shook both their hands warmly, and then Lola did the same.

“Braddock and Lola? Pilots of Ava Destruction?” Jake said. He ignored Nate’s expression and instead focused on how pleased the pilots seemed to be that he knew who they were. It didn’t hurt to have a good first impression.

“That’s us,” Lola said. “Lambert and Pentecost, right?”

“Nate’s fine.” The man in question said.

“I thought Avenger had a third pilot?” Braddock asked.

“She’s escortin’ your scientist to the lab,” Jake said. “She’ll be back.”

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting her,” Lola said with an earnest smile. She didn’t seem much older than Amara, either. 

_ She could use some more friends _ , Jake thought to himself.

“Hey, sorry to keep you waiting.” Zig was back, pulling along the last member of their group by the hand. 

“Caius, I thought you were right behind us,” Lola said, laying her hand on his arm. “What happened?”

Zig shook her head. “Nah, it’s my fault. I didn’t tell him it was our stop. Nate, Jake, this is Caius, my co-pilot for Ion Volt.”

But, the dark-haired man didn’t look up from where his eyes seemed to be fixated on his shoes. They watched Zig give him a gentle elbow, and he waved, the motion delayed and slow.

“Pilot also told me we’re expecting a delay on our Jaegers. Of course.” Zig rolled her eyes. “Still trying to get their shit together. That’s okay, we can get figured out before they get here.”

“How about we show where you’re sleeping?” Nate suggested.

“God, yes. I love to sleep.” Zig said emphatically. It won her a laugh from Jake. 

Getting them squared away wasn’t hard. The sleeping quarters hadn’t suffered as much damage, and honestly, the worst thing about going near them had been how quiet they were. Neither Jake nor Nate had mentioned it to the other, but they had both noticed. 

It would be a relief to get some more people around.

They hadn’t brought much with them, nothing more than a backpack each, but it was more than Jake and Amara had turned up with so it didn’t seem all that strange. When your prized possession was a stories-tall Kaiju killing machine, the little stuff didn’t always matter so much.

The other pilots stopped only long enough to throw their bags onto their respective beds before following Jake and Nate to the kitchen.

“Might as well eat while we wait for your Jaegers,” Nate said.

“You boys know how to make us feel at home.” Braddock laughed.

"Once upon a time there was a commissary, but for now, we've gotta cook for ourselves," Jake said. "I eat a lot of cereal."

Lola clapped her hands together. "I love to cook! I wonder what they've got hiding in here..."

As they dug around for food, Jake noticed what was missing. “Where’s Amara? She should be back by now.” But just as Jake was wondering, she was at his elbow.

“Sorry. Did you know he’s a pilot too? The scientist, I mean. Amadeo.” She said quickly. “We were talking about Jaegers.”

“ _ Was _ a pilot.” Zig pointed out, loading her plate. 

“Well, yeah.” Zig’s remark didn’t seem to mean anything to her, but Jake wasn’t sure what he thought about her tone. Amara kept talking regardless. “I mean, he’s a scientist now. He’s going to help Gottlieb.”

“And how is Gottleib taking to the invasion of his lab?” Nate asked as they sat down.

Amara shrugged. “He didn’t seem that upset. He’s been really quiet ever since the event. I mean, quieter than he was before it, even.”

“Amadeo knows how to play nice,” Lola said. “He’ll behave himself.”

This time it was Nate that caught Zig’s scowl, not Jake.

Caius said next to her on the bench. He sat sideways, facing Zig, and had no food of his own. Every once in a while, he would steal a bit from her plate, but other than that didn’t seem too interested in the food.

But he did reach over, without looking up, and tap on Lola’s shoulder before pointing at Amara. Lola looked back at him, and he made the motion of pressing his fingers together, as though measuring something small. Lola laughed.

“Okay but that’s not saying much, Caius, it ain’t like I’m much taller.” Zig pointed out.

“Does he just…?” Amara asked, looking between the two of them.

“Caius isn’t so good with words,” Zig said. “But he has ways to get his point across.”

“Yeah! We’ve been learning ASL, because sometimes that helps.” Braddock said. At that, Caius motioned again, taking his closed fist and nodding it up and down, much like a head. It earned a laugh from the larger pilot.

“But you’ve gotta see someone to know what they’re saying at you, if they’re using ASL, right?” Nate asked him. He didn’t really expect much of an answer, but it seemed to rude to ask anyone  _ but _ him.

“He can hear just fine, we just need the ASL to understand when he wants to answer,” Zig said. “And I mean, he  _ can _ look up, too. When he wants to.”

He glanced up briefly, almost furtively at Zig in response. It was almost too fast for Jake to see it, and certainly too fast for him to read much of the man’s face, but it was a nice sign.

“We’ll have to learn, too,” Jake said firmly. “Gotta be able to talk to each other.”

“Wait, if he doesn’t talk, how do you drift?” Amara asked.

Lola tapped the table next to her hand to get her attention so she could answer. “C’mon, you know how.”

When Amara frowned, it was at the realization that came seconds too late for her question. “Don’t need words in the drift. Man, I knew that one.”

“Actually, that reminds me of a question, too,” Braddock said, leaning his elbows on the table. “Gypsy’s got three pilots but its cockpit only sits two?” He said curiously. “I mean, unless I read the notes wrong.”

“No, you got it,” Nate said. “Jake and I are Gypsy’s pilots,-”

“But I  _ can _ pilot it,” Amara said quickly. “Jake and I can do it, we had to for the precursor attack.”

“Oh, so the three of you aren’t…” Lola said, gesturing between them. “That makes a lot more sense, I was confused too. Finding a partner is hard enough, finding two of them would be even worse.”

“We’re still not sure what we’re doing about all that. Haven’t exactly had time to figure it out.” Jake admitted. “I mean, what with… everything.”

“Maybe they  _ will _ just have to give you a third spot.” Zig winked at Amara. “Notes said you went in on a three-man, Bracer Phoenix, right? So you already know what it’s like.”

“Don’t encourage her.” Jake warned, in tandem with Nate’s warning words of “We’ll see.”

It won a laugh from the other pilots and a ‘hey!’ from Amara, but she was also the first one to speak up. 

“Wait, you never said what that meant-” Amara looked at Caius and made the same motion he had, pressing her fingers together like she meant to squish something.

“Oh, he was just saying you’re tiny, like Lola is,” Zig explained. 

“Good things, small packages,” Braddock said reassuringly.

“Scrapper is small, he’s a good thing,” Amara said, sounding proud rather than defensive.

“Have you had a chance to look at him since Liwen made those modifications?” Jake asked her.

“No.” She sighed. “Been kinda busy, you know.”

“Scrapper’s your baby, right?” Zig asked her eagerly. “Will you show me? I wanna meet him.”

“Yeah?” 

“Heck yeah. What's not to love about a scrap baby?” Zig said with a grin. Caius pointed to himself without looking up and Zig laughed.

“Caius is a scrap baby too, he says.”

It was decided they'd head back to the hangar after. They'd give Zig a chance to take a look at Scrapper and wait for the other Jaegers to get there. 

“Oh, isn't he just perfect!” Zig exclaimed. She looked to Amara excitedly, “May I?”

“Be my guest.” The younger woman answered, clearly amused. 

Without any hesitation, Zig jumped up on Scrapper, climbing it right to the cockpit. Amara followed her skillfully.

“So what Jake was saying about modifications…?”

“Look-” Amara opened his hatch so she could show Zig what was set up inside. “So during the attack, I was stuck in Phoenix and then in Gypsy, all the way over in Japan. Meanwhile, Liwen was making adjustments to Scrapper so she could pilot him remotely. That’s kind of her thing.”

“Liwen Shao, like, from Shao corp.” Zig clarified and Amara nodded.

“Yeah,” Amara nodded, immediately understanding Zig’s tone. “I thought she was a bitch, too, but she’s not really. That scientist guy is the one behind it all, he was just using her company as a front.”

“That sucks.”

“You’re telling me.”

It more than sucked, actually. Amara had noticed the emptiness of the dorms, had caught herself looking for her teammates before reminding herself that no, this  _ was _ everyone. All because one guy had to be crazy. But that feeling, that strange grasping at air didn’t translate well to words.

So yeah, in short, it sucked. 

They chatted about Scrapper, and to Amara’s joy Zig seemed much more interested in what she had built than what Liwen had changed. Not that she minded the changes, nor did she mind Liwen. Rather, it was just nice to have someone show so much enthusiasm for her work, illicit as it had been.

“Hey, Zig!” Eventually, their attention was drawn away, and Amara looked over to where Braddock was calling up to them.

“Eh?”

She looked down to see him gesturing to the area around them and seemed to catch on pretty quickly.

“What’s up?” Amara asked.

“Caius wandered off. He does that.” Zig said nonchalantly. “He’s probably outside. And we-” She looked at her watch. “Should probably be there too. Jaegers should be here any minute.”

Whooping in excitement, Amara jumped down and was quickly followed by Zig. Collecting the others, they headed back to the landing pad and, lo and behold, there was Caius, just like Zig had predicted. And, he wasn’t hunched over, at least for now.

“Hey, man,” Braddock said, by way of greeting. Caius didn’t look over to him, but he did point out into the distance.

“Our friends.”

“You can see them from here? You’re crazy.” Jake said, laughing. 

He was right though, as seconds later the rest of them could see them incoming as well. Two suits, transported by helicopter. A bright red one, and a black one.

“Those are some slick paint jobs,” Nate said. Lola laughed.

“We painted Ava red before we knew that Volt was going to be black. And, I mean, there were more suits when we picked the colour.” She added.

“If Volt is black you can’t tell when he’s dirty,” Zig said with a grin. “Which is always.”

They got the Jaegers landed safely, and what little dock crew they had managed to get them into the hangar without any real problems. 

“You wanna get all up in there and take a look?” Zig offered Amara, but they never quite got that far.

“Marshall’s looking for all of you guys.” One of the dock crew told them, deflating Amara immediately.

“Hey, another time,” Zig reassured her. 

The seven of them made their way to the marshall’s office. It was a bit of a tight fit; with a lot of the Shatterdome being rebuilt, he had been sequestered off into one of the smaller rooms. Still, they made it work.

“Wonderful, glad to see everyone,” Ascencio said.

“Marshall.” Zig greeted him with a broad grin. He gave her a sharp look before he continued.

“And I hear the Jaegers are accounted for?”

“Bit of a delay but they just got in,” Nate said.

“Good. We’re expecting even more people to get this place back up and running. While we do that, we might as well start trying to gather some intel.” He said.

“That’s why we’re here.” Zig nodded. “Right, Caius?”

The dark-haired man nodded, though he was back to looking at his shoes.

“So, Garcia, Govender-” He said, looking at Lola and Braddock. “You and Namani can work on getting the Jaegers seen to, and give me an idea of what is going on in our hangar. Right now, Eva Destruction and Ion Volt are all we have until we get the others repaired. I’d love a more detailed report of how they’re coming along.”

“Got it, boss,” Braddock said. 

Then, the marshall looked at the rest of them. “Meanwhile, we’re going to go take a look at our guest.”


End file.
